In a meat-packing operation the animals in question, for instance chickens, turkeys, or rabbits, are first plucked or skinned and then gutted, that is the viscera are removed to leave an internal body cavity open at one end or the other of the animal, depending on type. The thus gutted body is then often subjected to subsequent operations, such as trimming off fat, deboning, or cutting up into parts. A turkey body or carcass is, for instance, typically stripped of the breast meat, the wings and legs are removed for separate sale, and the remaining largely meatless body is either discarded or turned into pet food.
Such operations are almost invariably carried out manually on an assembly line, as the variation of size and shape from animal to animal is too great to allow any meaningful amount of automation to be used. Thus once the animal is gutted it is typically hung from a hook of a conveyor apparatus that moves in steps along a path at which workers perform the various operations.
In order to minimize waste, that is meat left on the skeleton, it is advisable to provide some sort of rack or holder for the gutted body so that same is held in such a manner that the workpiece constituted by this body is always presented to the workers in such a manner as to allow them to operate efficiently and always in the same manner. A rack that is connected externally to the body cannot work when the size range of the animals being worked on is relatively great